Category Archives: Myths

Sacred narratives

Menehune

Main Piece: Menehune is categorized as a mischievous small people. They are like dwarves but not really. They are just small people who live hidden in the valleys of Hawaii. They were there before the settlers and they made the roads, buildings, and ponds. They especially made the waterfalls and streams that connect to the ocean. They’re in a lot of children’s books and are like figures for kids to look up to as hard workers who work at night. I’ve heard them being used as tricksters who mess with visitors if they don’t behave.

Context: The informant is a current freshman at USC. She lived in Hawaii until she graduated high school. Growing up there, she learned all about the customs and folklore of Hawaii.

Thoughts: I like the concept of having a figure to look up to especially since it promotes hard work. It also reflects the respect for the land as well, which I think more people should definitely have. Their secondary role as a trickster also plays as a rule maker for tourists so that they do not go out wandering at night. 

For More information see, “The Menehune of Hawaii – Ancient Race or Fictional Fairytale?” by April Holloway

Holloway, April. “The Menehune of Hawaii – Ancient Race or Fictional Fairytale?” Ancient Origins, Ancient Origins, 11 June 2014, www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/menhune-hawaii-ancient-race-or-fictional-fairytale-001741.

Livermore’s Rockboy

Main Piece: There’s a place near where I live called Livermore. There’s an old highway which is closed now. Apparently there was a boy who sat on the overpass of the tunnel of the highway. He sat there and threw rocks at cars but one day some guy got mad at the kid and murdered him. Now his ghost haunts that overpass called Rockboy. It takes a lot to go to that place. You have to go through many alleys and stuff to get through and to hear Rockboy. What you have to do to see him you have to first go and turn off all electronic devices like your phone, car and anything like that, normally people go with a group cause it’s pretty scary. So once everything is off, everyone who is there has to be connected in some way and then someone has to say something along the lines of “Rockboy we come in peace.” when my friends and I did that I swear that I heard rocks being thrown.

Context: The informant moved to San Ramon in 2007 and heard about the myth from upperclassmen at his highschool. When learning about this ritual, he and a group of friends decided to try it.

Thoughts: This legend seems to be one that reflects the fear and eeriness of the overpass that’s abandoned. With abandoned sites like this, there seems to be a story behind it for why it was abandoned in the first place so that people can have a sense of thrill and excitement in a completely normal place, whether it is real or not.

Salish Tribe – Thunderbird and Spirit of the Water

Nationality: American (Norwegian heritage)
Age: 55
Occupation: Software Developer
Residence: Woodinville, Washington, USA
Performance Date: 4/29/20
Primary Language: English

Informant: We also have to talk about the myths of the Salish people, particularly the Thunderbird and the Spirit of the Water. I don’t know them that well, I just know that the Thunderbird is the bird that makes the thunder in the sky with the clap of his wings, and the Spirit of the Water is the Orca. He’s like… a brother. Someone who protects you and watches over you. 

Me: Where did you first hear about them? 

Informant: I grew up with them. The Swinimish tribe was just down the road in La Conner. We’d play them in sports all the time, the kids in the tribal school, so we were always over there. I think they were called The Braves. They hosted a basketball tournament every year, and it was a big deal, to go to the Swinimish Basketball Tournament. But you would always be – you’d always learn about their history. That was just the way it was. And it was really considered a good thing. You’d go to their school, and they’d have a giant Orca in their gymnasium. It was everywhere! That was just kinda what it was. And the totem poles, and you’d learn the history of the totem poles, how to read them and what they were and what they represented and things like that. 

Background: 
My informant is my father. He is in his mid-fifties, and grew up in a rural farm town in Washington State near some Native American tribes. As he described in the piece, he played sports with kids from their tribal school, so he was exposed first hand to Native American history as opposed to learning about it in school. The myths of the Salish people are pretty well known in the general Seattle area, and many have been turned into children’s books you might find in school libraries or bookstores. (While that’s not how my father learned the stories, I think it’s important to bring it up for context of the area he grew up in)

Thoughts: 

While the stories of the Thunderbird and other characters in these myths are widely known across Washington, I personally didn’t know that the Orca was the Spirit of the Water. It made a lot of sense, and made me rethink if that’s why Washington is so protective of their Orcas. I always thought it was because they aren’t very common, and that made having them nearby a source of pride; however, now I’m wondering how much of Washington’s attachment to the animal has to do with the myths that say the Orcas will watch over us and protect us. It’s a perspective I’d never thought about before, and I found it to be really interesting.

Ram and the berries

Nationality: Indian
Age: 56
Occupation: Corporate Manager
Residence: Pune, India
Performance Date: April 2020
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi

Piece

    On one day of Ram’s exile, he was approached by a woman who was a big devotee of him. She has a beautiful- you know- pure love for him because he had this persona of a warm, loving, kind, wonderful person. 

    So… what she did is… she told Ram that she wanted to host him and give him some fruits that she collected. Seeing the warmth in her eyes, Ram said that he would love to eat in her house. At the house, she had three plates of berries, one for Ram, one for Sita, and one for Laxman. They sat down and started eating. Ram was very happy because all the berries were sweet. The berries were the berr berries you know? This- those berries are either sweet- or sour, red or white but you can’t tell from outside. So he was eating the berries and all of them were sweet. 

But in the middle, he noticed there was a small bite taken from each of the berries. He asked the woman what these bites were so- and she said that she had taken a bite from each berry to make sure that it was sweet for him. Ram laughed and happily ate all the berries. 

Background

    This story is a small sub story from the ancient epic, The Ramayana, which is one of the ancient holy stories about Ram, the 7th avatar of Vishnu. There is a complex backstory for Ram involving being exiled from his own kingdom with his wife and his brother. The story is a classic hero’s journey tale in Hindu mythology and many sub stories have emerged in the folklore of the Indian people. 

Context
    My mother told me this story over the phone after I asked her about stories she would tell my brother and I as children. 

Thoughts

This was a story that my mother would often tell me when I would be grossed out by eating the same food that my brother or my father had eaten. I honestly don’t know if this story is included in the ancient story or if it is a story that my mother’s ancestors might have made up to get naughty children to eat food that has already been touched.

This story teaches us not only to respect everyone and appreciate their gestures, but also to be free and generous with our love and devotion to a good person.

Oka Falalla

Nationality: Native American
Age: 53
Occupation: CEO of Atsiniki Cigars
Residence: Franklin, Tennessee
Performance Date: 04-25-2020
Primary Language: English
Language: Choctaw

Main Piece: 

Informant: The Choctaw of old tell the story of Oka Famalla, “the returning waters.” This story has been told among the Choctaw for as long as we know.

Interviewer: What is the “returning waters?”

Informant: Long ago, the Choctaw began to be influenced in a bad way by other people. And they began to lose traditional Choctaw values, like taking care of each other. The Creator, Hashtala, had warned the people that they needed to return to our ways, or something bad would happen to them. One man, though, was a good man. He tried to keep our traditional ways. So Hashtala told him to make a large raft out of limbs from the sassaphrass trees, a tree common to the Choctaw lands. He made this large raft, and then it began to rain. It rained for many days, no one really knows how long. Then it stopped. The man floated on the raft for many days after the rain stopped. Then he saw a small blue bird. This bird’s name translates into the English phrase of “turtle dove.” This small bird stayed with the man and as it would fly, the man paddled his raft in the direction the bird flew. Then they came upon land. The bird became a female and she and the man stayed together, had children, and began to populate the earth.

Interviewer: That story sounds a lot like the Bible story of Noah and the ark.

Informant: Yes. When the Choctaw heard the Bible story, they wondered how the writers of the Bible knew the story of Oka Famalla. But we also knew that many tribes had similar stories, so it was not a complete surprise when the white man had a story like theirs also.

Background:

The informant is a Choctaw man in his early 50’s. He was born in Texas and grew up in Oklahoma. He currently resides in Tennessee with his wife and children.

Context:

During the Covid-19 Pandemic I flew back home to Tennessee to stay with my family. The informant is my father. My dad and I decided to have cigars in the back yard and I asked if he could share a few stories regarding our Native culture. I’ve grown up learning about these many traditions but asked him to explain them as if sharing with someone unfamiliar with the culture.

Thoughts: 

From Deucalion and Pyrrha of Greek Mythology to the story of Noah and the Ark in Judeo-Christian culture, flood stories have been a central theme in cultures all around the world. The Great Flood has pre-biblical origins, the oldest known account featuring Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh of ancient Mesopotamia. After hearing the story of Oka Famalla, it was interesting to see the commonalties between these stories. They usually involve humanity becoming corrupt and a deity sending a flood to destroy the world as a result, a sort of a global baptism if you will. A morally righteous person is set apart and tasked to build a large boat to preserve his species. I thought it was interesting how the bird is featured in all of these stories, specifically the dove. This particular story stood out in that it has the bird transforming into a woman but other than that the similarities are quite note-worthy